Heavy

Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse which conjure conflicted feelings of shame joy confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been. In "Heavy " Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence to his suspension from college to his trek to New York as a young college professor Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother grandmother anorexia obesity sex writing and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding Laymon asks himself his mother his nation and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures "Heavy" is defiant yet vulnerable an insightful often comical exploration of weight identity art friendship and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.